As one type of information equipment, image forming apparatuses have been introduced to many places of business (companies and offices). Such an image forming apparatus is connected to a terminal device through a communication link, receives image data transmitted from the terminal device, and prints an image based on the image data.
In an image forming system including a terminal device and an image forming apparatus, sometimes communication fails by some cause or other while image data is being transmitted from the terminal device to the image forming apparatus. In such a situation, transmission of the image data from the terminal device to the image forming apparatus is stopped and, therefore, printing cannot be executed.
Recently, it is becoming more popular to use wireless transmission for printing by the image forming apparatus. When image data is to be transferred from the terminal device to the image forming apparatus through a wireless link, it is difficult to maintain satisfactory communication between the terminal device and the image forming apparatus if the state of wireless link (for example, radio wave condition) deteriorates. Then, satisfactory transfer of image data from the terminal device to the image forming apparatus becomes impossible.
Patent literature 1 as indicated below discloses an information processing apparatus connected to a printing apparatus through a wireless link. The information processing apparatus transmits print data to the printing apparatus, and instructs execution of printing of the print data that has been transmitted to the printing apparatus. Further, the information processing apparatus detects the status of wireless link, and controls the operation of instructing print execution in accordance with the detected link status. Specifically, if the status of wireless communication is bad, the information processing apparatus stops the operation of instructing execution of printing.
According to Patent Literature 1, since the operation of instructing execution of printing is stopped by the information processing apparatus if the status of wireless link is unsatisfactory, it is possible to prevent execution of printing when transfer of print data to the printing apparatus fails.